Religions are not equals

[Crunchy]

Thumpalumpacus Wrote:
I don't agree with the entire thrust. Religions aren't people, but they are interpreted by people, and as such, too many folks -- on both sides of the argument --conflate the two, wrongly, in my opinion. Some Muslims cotton to the extremist views, others are cafeteria Muslims, but get defensive when they're broad-brushed. 

I can certainly understand that reaction, being an atheist. Lord knows we've been broad-brushed enough that we ought to be cautious we don't do the same thing ourselves.

You say you don't agree but I can't see any disagreement from what you've written.
You agree that religions aren't people and also agree that people do conflate the two on both sides. Once again, I agree with you but I don't see how that is any invalidation of the thrust of this thread. I think you're bringing up a related yet separate issue (that we also agree on)

I'm thinking that because I only was only discussing the "liberal" mistakes in calling critics of islam racists that you may have assumed I don't see the "conservative" mistake in lumping all muslims together into one monolithic group. I actually don't do that as I believe both liberals who excuse islam by labelling critics as racists and conservatives who see Muslim people as islam itself are both failing at separating the religion from the adherents.  I didn't make that clear.  However, that was because the thread was about the labelling of critics as "racist" and "bigots". 
We can certainly discuss the issue of seeing people as a monolithic representation of a text book and it is certainly part of the problem that arises when we conflate people and religion but it seems we already agree on that as well.

Just one nitpick: 
You said that people interpret religion. I bring this up because I've heard this before in the context that it is racist to see one religion as worse than another because it's people who interpret religion and you are therefore seeing one person as worse than another if you see one religion as worse than another. (which I know is not how you meant it)
It's true but irrelevant as people interpret literally everything. Everything that is interpreted is interpreted by people. Quantum Mechanics is interpreted by people and yet no one conflates Quantum Mechanics with people. As far as I can see it's only religion that gets this special treatment.